Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-02-16
WEBSTER'S SPELLER.
EVOLUTION OF THE ONCE POPU.
LAR "SPEILiNG BOOK
Noah Webster's Great and Successful
Enterprise-The Fortunes of = Con-
n.cticut school Teachers Work-The
Famou, Select Fables"

n.cticut school Teachers work-The
Famous select Fables"
One Of the books much in vogue in the
colonies, Thomas DiiwOrths New Guide to
the English Tongue" and when first pub
Ished. about liiO, it was probably a great
improvement ON its predecessors. for it had
great run III both countries. Today, in
glanclng through il, it seems nearly worth
less, and this opinion of it began to take
shape towards the end Of the Revolution,
when Joel Barlow probably only expressed
public sentiment in complaining that lads
once lugged into 1t when young are afraid of
all kinds of grammar all their days after"
At this time Noah Webster, fresh from Yale
college, was presented with an g bill Of Con
tinental currency worth about half that sum
in speciel 10y his father, and told that he must
strike out for himself To Connecticut col
lege bred lad this was equivalent TO saying,
Teach a school, and teach he did, first in
Hartford and then in Goshen. n. Y, and
from practical experience became convinced
of the worthleSSness of Diwor.h
To native bred Yankee an error is some
thing to be corrected, and a poor piece Of
work something that needs improving Web
ster set himself to the task of reforming the
New Guide"-a work OF no mean proportion
with the lack of pathological knowledge in
this country at that time-and after two
years of hard study completed his revision,
when he Travelled through the states, en-
deavOrIng 10 obtain copyright laws order
to protect his work. Returning to Hartford
with partial success, he next sought a pub
Usher, but Of course without success, so, with
the aid Of loan from Joel Barlow, he was
driven to the necessity of taking the whole 1
risk upon his own shoulders: and Hudson &
Goodwin. printers in Hartford, printed in
l'4 1000 copies, taking from the author IA
bond to make good any Deficiencies there |
might he
Webster had originally intended to call his |
book The American Instructor" but by the |
advice of DR.. Ezra Stiles, president Of Yale |
college. the title was changed to "A Gram |
matt al Institute of the English Language"
and nothing proves the real merit of the work |
50 strongly as the fact that for twenty years
1t bore that title, and yet lived, though at |
the end Of that period the name became The |
American Spelling Book. and still later. in |
revised form, The Elementary Spelling |
Book" The book proved great success
edition after edition was called for, and sup
planted nearly every book of its kind pul
lshed in this country. /
IL was the custom then for authors to sell &c
the printers the right to print editions for 1 |
certain number Of years, and accordingly
Webster sold his privilege to printers in Bos
ton, Hartford, Albany, New York and Phila |
delphia, for transportation was then so diff |
cult that none If theSs printers could inter
fere with each others sales. The copyright |
was scoE of great value: in l.S5 the book was |
selling at the rate of so a week, and in 1870 |
the sa.es i'll a single state were 20,0DO. For |
year. the author lived on the proceeds from |
the sTeIler, while many publishers were coin |
ing money out Of it, In 1871 when the work |
vas revised. one printer gave him 5000 |
gear for his term Of copyright, and another |
$4,000 for the privilege of printing editions |
fos fourteen years. By 1878, 500, 900 copies |
lad been sold, and by lsi7, "A ,OoO, ,OOO, or ali \
average rate of nearly 400 900 copies a year. |
and from this time on il is safe to estimate |
the sales at million copies annually.
Each printer varied his editions in particu- |
lars TO please his own fancy. The Philadel |
phia printer "embellished" his with a portrait |
Of the Father of his Country" and Mr.. |
Thomas, the great New England printer, not i
to be outdone. ornamented his with q vile |
wood cut of what purported TO be Noah /
Webster, Jr., Esq" This wood engraving |
and the absurd title of the book were made |
for want of better the points of attack by |
those at enmity with him Mr. Grammatical |
Institute" Mr. Institutional Genius "Mr |
Squire, Jr., =" were some of the names applied |
to him, and William CObbett went so far a. /
10 draw up a mock will, in which he be- |
queathed him six Spanish milled dollars, to /
be expended on a new plate of his portrait at /
-
grcces it at present being 50 ugly that it |
scares the children from their Lessons; but |
this legacy is to be paid HIM only on condition
that he leaves out the title of Squire at the /
bottom of said picture, which is extremely |
oaious in an American school book and must |
inevitably tend to corrupt the political prin-
ciples of the republican babies that behold |
it,"
To all who studied the speller, the part that
probably made the greatest impression was
the Select Fables" Ihese were an after |
thought of the author for they do not appear
in the earliest editions. How many have car
RED along, in after life, the moral lessons
taught by The Country Maid and Her Milk |
Pail, The Fox and the Swallow" The Cat
and the Rat" The Fox and the Bramble,"
and many other equally sharp examples of |
tNh WHICH were fltbdbN Illtc tS ell
carious on the ethics as the corrections in
pronunciation were on the language of the
children.
The spelling book slowly underwent altera-
ation. The printers discovered very soon
that the title was clumsy, and changed it to
"The American Spelling Book" The author
was constantly simplifying and Improving.
for although soon occupied in his dictionary,
"A
teres- in his first venture, and we'll he might,
for almost his whole support was derived
from the book. Others copied his ideas, hop
ing to obtain share of the profits, and as
the century advanced the book was slowly |
driven out of New England, the land of its
birth by the improvements in school books,
yet the sales increased steadily and it found |
refuge in the south and west, and even trav-
eled to England. In a revised form it helped
to educate the Confederate youth during the
rebellion, and oday it can still be found in
schools here and there throughout the
country.